Global Warming Advisor Confesses

Global warming government advisor confesses science is leaving climate policies behind, as David Evans reveals in articles in the Australian, 18 Jan 2008 and ABC "Unleashed" 1 Aug 2008. David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005 and introduces himself as “the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.” He now claims: “On global warming, public policy is where the science was in 1998. Due to new evidence, science has since moved off in a different direction.” When he began his work with the Greenhouse Office he says “the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good” but new scientific studies have “seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming.” Evans reminds his readers of a quote from Lord Keyes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" Evans gives four reasons for changing his mind about man-made global warming. They are:

1. The failure to find the “signature of an increased greenhouse effect”, ie. a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics;

2. Plenty of evidence that warming has occurred, but “no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming”;

4. Ice core data that show six previous global warmings where the temperature rose before an increase in carbon dioxide.

Evans comments that this last point “says something important about which was cause and which was effect.” He then challenges the politicians who are introducing carbon taxes and trading schemes in response the proponents of man-made global warming with these words: “The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.”

Editorial Comment: For our non-Australian readers, the ALP is the Australian Labor Party, a left-leaning party who are currently in power in Australia. The Liberals are a conservative political party, currently in opposition.

Evans' warning is more serious than just the electoral prospects of a few politicians. Because global warming alarmists such as Al Gore have driven the agenda for the past decade, people have been led to believe that man-made global warming is undisputed scientific fact, and therefore, governments have a right to force people to pay for fixing it up. If people get to know that governments are taking their money for something they didn't do, and couldn't change anyway, they will feel cheated by both scientists and politicians, and become distrustful of experts and authority figures in general. This makes people harder to govern, especially in democratic societies. Democracy only works with the cooperation of the people. Without cooperation, governments have to resort to coercion. (Ref. climate, politics, society)